Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

This was a quick read, and easy in the sense that it was a fast read but not so easy emotionally. The story resonated and hit home for me many times. As someone who suffers from severe depression and suicidal thoughts this actually triggered many flash backs and emotions for me. It brought back so many awful memories from high school. The message in this is good though, that you never know what someone is going through and even the smallest act can spiral into undoing someone, so always watch what you say or do.

Goodreads Synopsis:

You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever. There were some parts I didn’t like and I guess it is probably meant to be that way, because life isn’t always made up of things you like. Still I wish certain parts could have played out a bit better. As for Hannah I’m still actually not sure how I feel about her character.

My Experience:

It’s hard to form a decently written review because I watched the show right after I read this. I can’t, even now, come up with a good review on how I feel about either. Both were good with a genuine message. But I think many people need to be very careful going into reading or watching this show or book. It deals with very hard topics and for someone like me who has depression it actually made it a bit worse for me for some reason.

I do think this could help a lot of kids understand their actions and to try and think before they act or learn to reach out to others. I know this isn’t a great review, but seriously I still don’t know how to formulate one on this! It deals with a sensitive topic and its very real, something that needs to be addressed more honestly these days. It is also a trigger for some people. So proceed with caution knowing there is rape, suicide, bullying etc. A good read but very hard emotionally! Take that as you will I suppose.